


Attack Dog

by NinaWhite



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Is Hux righteous or a dick? Flip a coin and find out., M/M, Manipulation, set to the tune of "She's Gonna Break Soon"
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-22 06:27:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6068683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinaWhite/pseuds/NinaWhite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the untimely destruction of Starkiller base, Hux notices something. A new crack or perhaps an old one with the dust newly blown off. Either way it's an opportunity. A chance to take something brutal and viscous and borderline rabid and wield it like a finely built blaster.</p><p>No, not a blaster. More like an unstable lightsaber. Likely to burn the wielder if held too close or not enough care was shown. But that was all right. It was a risk he was willing to take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The shuttle rocked with the final shockwave of the destruction of Starkiller base, nearly knocking Hux off of his feet.  His hand slammed against the wall, the impact jarring him, bouncing down his arm to slam into his neck and shoulder, yet still he refused to be visibly ruffled. On unsteady feet, he strode his way to the cockpit, manned by two of his best pilots.

 

As the shuttle settled back into a smooth flight, Hux’s stride evened out. He was barely acknowledged once he reached his destination and he was glad of it. Much preferring the pilots do their jobs and get them off of the planet and to the Finalizer. Through the window he could see a myriad of other escape pods and small shuttles, even a swarm of TIE fighters darting out from what used to be the shining jewel in the First Order’s crown. The Finalizer had already been out of the atmosphere, having not touched down on a planet since her initial take off, not designed to ever set down on land once it had gotten going and that was where every survivor of the First Order was heading.

 

There was nothing he could do, not right at that moment, but he itched for action. For retribution. The amount of good people that this heinous attack must have killed, the resources it had swept away, it all made him feel ill. How many of his Officers, the men and women he worked with every day, had fallen to this monstrous act?

 

He glanced back, his eyes landing on Ren’s prone form, secured by three Stormtroopers. He looked ghastly. His skin grey and shining with sweat, the saber burn on his face a black and stinking travesty. The blood from the blaster wound to his side didn’t show on his clothes, but he could smell the singed material and the bright crimson stood out starkly on the armour of his Troopers where ever it had smeared. If it wasn’t for the wet and raspy little gasps that the Knight kept taking, each punctuated with a soft and gurgling wheeze, Hux would have thought him dead.

 

He didn’t let himself think that there was still time for that to happen. They still had to get to the Finalizer and see him to the medbay. As irritating as the man was, and he was truly infuriating at times, he had never seemed breakable. Never seemed fragile. Swooping around the way he did, he came off as a living weapon, immutable and inhuman in a way that had nothing to do with aliens. Until now Hux hadn’t been entirely convinced that the masked creature even had blood, let alone the ability to bleed. The idea that something might actually manage to harm him was ridiculous to the extreme.

 

But now.

 

Now it was a blow to see him clinging onto the little life left in him. Almost as devastating as the destruction of Starkiller. To have this natural force brought to his knees in so visceral a manner was akin to having the very ground fall out from under his feet. A shift in the very way reality seemed to work.

 

But if Starkiller could be so easily swept away, if Kylo Ren could be bested by some untrained scavenger, what else in his world that seemed indestructible and undeniable was secretly fragility masquerading as power?

 

“Docking now,” one of the pilots announced, interrupting his maudlin and borderline traitorous thoughts. He looked to the man and gave him a nod of approval before radioing to have the medbay readied for Ren.

 

He shuddered to think what sort of blow to morale the troops seeing Ren like this would be, but haste was the most important thing to be considered now. Morale would surely suffer significantly worse if Ren were to die. As Hux was a symbol of order and stability within the First Order, Ren was a symbol of power and mite. The very fist of the Supreme Leader.

 

Docked in the Finalizer, Ren was hastily put upon a stretcher and rushed to the medbay. Hux didn’t follow. There were other things that needed to be done. Order that needed to be returned, a course to be plotted. He did however give orders to be notified of any change in the Knight, no matter how small.

 

A mere half an hour later a panicked yelp came over the coms and Hux found himself running to the medbay. Troopers scattered out of his way, knowing better than to get in the path of a superior officer if they were rushing. And rushing was putting it mildly. Last time he had been contacted over coms with little more than a scream, well, he still shuddered to think what he had found.

 

His legs were burning and his heart hammering by the time he got there.

 

Just in time to see one of the medtechs throw up blood while another supported her. He froze in the doorway, blocking it from closing as he stopped and stared in horror. The poor woman was ash grey, sobbing and trembling. Her body completely drained of strength and dependant on the man holding her up.

 

“Don’t touch me!” Hux snapped his eyes to the bed as Ren shakily slipped from it, holding his hand palm out at another terror stricken medtech. There was a near snarl on his face, his robes gone. Shirtless, bloodied, bruised and burnt, Ren hobbled his way to the door, doing his best to stay up straight.

 

“What are you doing? You are in no state to leave,” Hux snapped as the woman was rushed to a bed of her own and one of the others continued to prep a bactatank.

 

“Get out of my way Hux.”

 

“No! Less than an hour ago you were on deaths doorstep.” His eyes briefly dropped to the blaster wound, bypassing the long and vicious looking slash that went from his hip straight up to his shoulder. It was horrifyingly huge. Near the size of a dinner plate, but shallow. If Hux didn’t know that it was a death sentence for anyone so must as grazed by it, he would have thought that he had been hit by a bowcaster or some other anti-artillery weapon. That had been the bloody one, though now it looked gnarled and somehow older than the hour or so it was. “Kriffing hell, what happened to you?”

 

“Bowcaster,” he said, pointing at the huge wound in his side. “Lightsaber,” his thigh. “Lightsaber,” the gash across his torso. “Lightsaber,” another burn on the opposite shoulder. “Lightsaber,” his face. “All of which can be put down to the hazards of attempting to recruit. Now get out of my way General, I am not safe to be around right now.” And with that, he stalked forward, unnervingly steady for a man who had been a mere moment away from death the last time he had seen him. It gave him little choice other than move or be mown down and Hux wisely chose to move.

 

“How-”

 

“Willpower and the force, now I’m sure you’re very busy General but I need to get to my chambers.”

 

Hux allowed the rude brush off and stared at Ren’s back as he strode off, belatedly realising that this would actually make him even more of a monster in the eyes of the troops. His people weren’t fools. They would see those injuries and know that any other man would be dead three times over.

 

Then he noticed that the back he was staring at was not only muscled and broader than he would have thought from the robes, but littered with scars. Some silver slivers and some pink old burns that stood out starkly on his near pure white skin. Many were obviously from weaponry, likely training incidents. But others, the straight lines that spanned his back and crisscrossed but always seemed to run from one side to the other, those were not marks of unsuccessful sparing. Training would not leave a mark like that, but cruelty would.

 

The pattern of scars seared themselves into Hux’s mind and he wasn’t entirely sure why it had affected him so much, though he wouldn’t be surprised if it was just his mind grasping for any distraction available.

 

Except the longer he stood there, watching the Knight stalk down the corridor until he was gone and there was only empty air to stare at, the more the gyros in his head began to turn. And turn. And spin.

 

And then spark.

 

Oh that had potential, both system shattering and glorious potential. All that power and all that pain wrapped up like a gift with those few words.

 

_I am not safe to be around right now._


	2. Chapter 2

Starkiller had never been Hux’s idea. Snoke had wanted that particular weapon built and at first Hux had not seen the wisdom in it, but he was nothing if not a good soldier and he would be lying if he said he hadn’t lusted after the idea of having that much raw power at his command. But there had been problems. Obvious and glaring problems.

 

Such a weapon was hardly subtle. It was a near miracle that they had managed to build it without being detected and he had known that after the first time of being fired it would be found out. So the first shot had to count. And it had. No matter the judgement that he knew he would receive from Snoke, there had always been a risk that the resistance would find a way to bypass their not inconsiderable security measures. Desperation was adept at breeding ingenuity. And Starkiller was the sort of thing that inspired as much desperation as it did fear.

 

Still, as the weapon had neared completion it had been difficult not to be proud, not to get swept away in the giddy joy of making such a leap towards returning the galaxy to order. It had been an inspiring vision of the future. With fire power like that even the Hutts would have to have fallen in line and stop their pillaging. He could still see it in his mind’s eye. Each person with their place, allotted by merit. No space for nepotism to cripple society, no chance for the weak to thrive and bring the galaxy down to their level. Instead the strong would prosper and the Empire would be born anew with all the weaknesses of the old Empire purged and the purity of purpose that it had lacked firmly in place.

 

Now the weapon was in pieces and it had threatened to take his hope for the future with it. But no, the vision of what this galaxy could be held strong. And it held strong with new direction. Direction that had him striding through the damn ship at four in the kriffing morning to try and keep his vision on course.

 

His limbs felt heavy, but he refused to show it, instead walking brusquely with one hand grasping his other wrist behind his back and his head held high. He didn’t want to be up. He wasn’t due to rise for another hour and a half. But his new project was in jeopardy before he had even really had the chance to start it.

 

The door slid open once he had put in the code and he made to step over the threshold.

 

A crushing force gripped him, halting him mid stride and bearing down on him with enough force to make his muscles tremble. A flash of blaster fire flared in his eyes, the heat of it near searing his cheek for the briefest of moments and then he heard the crash of it behind him.

 

Hux nearly tumbled to the floor when the invisible grip released him, catching his misstep at the last moment and only just managing not to gasp now breath was restored to him. A glance over his shoulder at the fresh scorch mark and a quick calculation of trajectory was enough to let the General know just how close he had come to losing his face.

 

“In or out General,” came the unusually placid voice of Kylo Ren. “Pick one.”

 

Hux found himself taking a few more steps into the room, his eyes fixing on the Knight as he did so. He stood barefoot and shirtless, his lightsaber in hand and its ragged red blade casting his pale skin in a harsh light. Over his shoulder Hux could see a floating white orb of a droid, shaking a little at Ren’s outstretched hand.

 

Then he noticed that the other man was not only underdressed, but he was crudely blindfolded.

 

“You may want to choose somewhere to stand and stay there. While I’m certain I could prevent any stray bolts from hitting you, I could understand why you might not want to risk it. I am using live ammunition after all.”

 

“You’re insane,” Hux said, taking a few steps away from the door but hugging close to the wall.

 

“How nice of you to notice,” Ren said, rolling his shoulders before dropping his arm down.

 

The effect was immediate. The spherical droid darted sharp to the left and let out a shower of blaster fire. Ren reacted with lightning reflexes. His lightsaber a blur of red as he deflected every blast with smooth and well practiced ease. He moved with the grace of a dancer and the efficiency of a droid. It was as impressive to see as it was unnerving. Nothing should move like that. Or at least nothing human.

 

And certainly nothing as injured as Ren should still be. The thought of it, the memory of those barely closed wounds, jarred the general and reminded him of what he had come here for. He had fully intended to put a stop to this foolishness, but now he wasn’t so sure if he should. The Knight wasn’t moving like an injured man, or even a man in need of any rest.

 

The skill was undeniable and would have been even if Ren wasn’t blindfolded. He found himself unwillingly marvelling at the hum and snap of the weapon, the flash of every deflected bolt. He couldn’t claim to understand how Ren was doing this, if it was some trick of the Force or he had simply trained his other senses to be so sharp that he had no need of sight to do something like this, but as the scorch marks on the walls spread and proliferated, none of them coming within even a meter of him, he began to wonder why the man wasn’t sent off to do more than what he was. He was a walking weapon of mass destruction and he was being squandered away on barely relevant missions.

 

“You know, we have a perfectly good simulator,” Hux said, trying not to admire the play of red light and dark shadow across Ren’s pale skin. The Knight gave a snort and waved his hand, the droid pulled its weaponry back within itself and drifted slowly to the floor as Ren turned off his weapon. A strange silence filled the room, feeling unnatural in comparison to the constant crackling hum of the activated lightsaber.

 

“You’re simulations are of no use to me,” he said, sounding oddly reasonable as he pushed the blindfold up and off his head. “They train the wrong senses.” He blinked and squinted a little as his eyes readjusted to the light before turning to look at Hux. “Besides, those things are pale imitation of real combat.”

 

It was hard to feel the sting of that familiar jibe when faced with so much pale skin and taught muscle. Especially glistening with the sweat of his training. What did his lack of field experience in the front lines of battle matter when this scarred beauty was stood exposed before him.

 

“You’re staring Hux,” Ren said, voice rippling with irritation. “The scars aren’t that bad.” Yes, the scars that was absolutely what he had been looking at. Or at least it was now because they should not be scars, silvery with falsified age in the case of the gnarled gut wound and a shiny pink across his collar and up to just under his eye.

 

“How is this possible?” Hux said, allowing himself to sound at least a little awed as Ren pulled an ill-fitting shirt over his head. “Two days ago I thought you were going to die and now, now you’ve only got a few more scars to add to your collection.” And Ren, he must have been more tired than he was letting on because he actually answered.

 

“Do you remember the medtech? Woman, brown hair. Doctor Shelah. Vomiting blood the last time either of us saw her.”

 

Hux remembered her alright. She had been in a bactatank under strict quarantine since the incident and hadn’t really regained consciousness but neither had her illness spread. It hadn’t been explained either.

 

Ren tilted his head, those boys eyes seeming to hold shame for the briefest moment before they cast themselves downwards in an attempt at feigning indifference.

 

“She touched me.”

 

“What?” Hux asked, genuinely baffled. Ren took a slow breath that oh so obviously wanted to be a sigh, then turned away to busy himself with adjusting the shirt he had obviously gotten from the stores.

 

“While I was unconscious. She touched me. And because I was unconscious and couldn’t stop it from happening, I ripped some of the life out of her. A dangerous amount to be honest. But the rest of my recovery is down to a similar, more finely controlled, power.”

 

“What are you saying?” he asked, suspicious. Ren gave a slow and somehow feline shrug.

 

“The Finalizer has a crew of over thirty thousand people and at the moment it is carrying significantly more than that due to what happened with Starkiller. No one will even notice what I took.”

 

Hux didn’t know if he was impressed or disgusted by what he was hearing. That the man stood opposite him had effectively sucked the life out of his crew to heal himself, like some grim vampire.

 

“I had no choice,” he snapped as if Hux had said the words aloud and, not for the first time, he wondered if his very thoughts had been overheard. “I am of little use to the Order if I’m injured.”

 

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Hux bit out, more out of reflex than spite. “Though I often wonder what use you are even when entirely healthy.”

 

“Was there something you wanted General? Or did you come here just to stare at my wounds and interrupt my training?” Ren said in the slow drawn out draw of his that only ever used when he was on the verge of losing his temper.

 

“Frankly I came to stop you from doing something stupid, but with your health no longer in question I see that you’ve once again been little more than a waste of my time.” It was petty, he knew that. But Ren had always brought out the worst in him regardless of the situation. The Knight narrowed his eyes, but otherwise didn’t move, taking on the unnaturally still posture of some venomous creature about to strike. Good. Perfect. That meant he was hanging on every word. “And believe it or not Lord Red, there are people here that care if you give yourself an injury.”

 

He didn’t stay to give the Knight any chance at a response, though from the look of shear confusion that had twisted the other man’s expression he doubted there was much risk of that. First step complete, Hux instead made his way back through the ship, fatigue all but forgotten and something dangerously close to a spring in his step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and the kudos, they were greatly appreciated. I know this has taken a bit longer than I said it would but work has been ridiculous. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and as always I love hearing from people and I can be found on tumblr at ninasnon-sense.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> If you're on tumblr you can find me at ninasnon-sense.tumblr.com/ where I reblog silly stuff and update on my more serious writing. Seriously, feel free to contact me either there or here, I enjoy hearing from people.
> 
> Oh, I publish on Amazon under the name Nina White and I have two books out. A short horror novel called Vengeance of the Dead and the first in a scifi/fantasy series called Flying Straightish so if you want to read something of mine that's actually finished check those out.


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